Word: instead
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...telescope designers were leaping all over the place. University of Arizona astronomer Roger Angel's solution to the sagging-glass problem was to cast huge mirrors that are mostly hollow, with a honeycomb-like structure inside to guarantee stiffness. University of California at Santa Cruz astronomer Jerry Nelson opted instead to create a mirror not from a single huge slab of glass but from 36 smaller sheets that would, under a computer's control, act as one. And in Europe, design teams came up with yet another idea, the exact opposite of Angel's: instead of making the mirror hollow...
Adaptive-optics systems may sound complicated, but they pale beside another technological trick that will ultimately boost telescopes' power even more. Called interferometry, it achieves the precise focus of a truly huge telescope without actually having the thing built. Instead, light is combined from widely separated telescopes--the two Kecks, say, whose observatory building was designed with a basement-level chamber for that purpose, or two or more of the four VLT telescopes in Chile. The system is dauntingly tricky and complex, but its astonishing precision will let astronomers tease out the details of galactic structures and distant solar systems...
Their kidnappers were supposed to be the "good guys," rescuing Homer and his brother from drug-induced squalor and neglect. Instead of entering the realm of Ninja Turtles and Popsicles, however, Homer went through a childhood of dependency-court hearings, social workers and frayed relationships. Nobody preserved his family unit. For the past 15 years he has been in foster care...
...want provocative celebrity couples--they aren't. That's why CARSON DALY and TARA REID did the inevitable, cute and right thing last week by not running off to Vegas or getting mutual tattoos. Instead they got properly engaged and called their parents. Daly, beloved by teen girls as host of MTV's Total Request Live, is notable for an adolescent flirtation with the priesthood, a deep affection for golf and a previous involvement with Jennifer Love Hewitt. Reid, disliked by teen boys for managing to keep her clothes on in American Pie, is a refugee from Saved...
MORE FAN ANIMOSITY We have no real equivalent of, say, Arsenal vs. Tottenham. We don't sing sectarian anthems and fling pub darts at each other. This is bad for ratings. So instead of determining teams geographically (New York, L.A., Orlando), I suggest organizing teams along ethnic, religious, political and tribal lines. There should be a Bloods team. A Crips team. A Lubavitch Hasidim team. Aryan Nations, Khmer Rouge, Hutu, Tutsi, Royal Ulster Constabulary, Jews for Jesus, Hizballah. Now you've got some fierce rivalries going--off the field and on. You try tackling a 275-lb. running back with...